New Years Eve

All Poems, Animals/Insects, For Children, Holidays, Humor, New Years Eve

Sometimes Good Fortune Slams You

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Sometimes good fortune slams you.

Right into something curious, unexpected.

Like this afternoon.

Walking parking lots with Bob at Salus.

Shivering with cold.

Hands in gloves.

Hats on heads.

Each pulling inward to conserve body heat.

Looking downward to avert the wind.

When we both heard honking.

Two dozen geese roamed in front of us.

Wearing thick feather coats, black neck scarves.

Pecking grass.

Strolling sidewalks.

Milling around.

As if they were waiting.

Bob broke the silence.

I can’t tell if they’re coming up from the south or heading down from the north.

It was, indeed, confusing.

Was this a way station?

Were they just visiting from a nearby park?

Looking for mates?

Or had they stopped by to celebrate New Years Eve?

To ring in 2024 with jabbering and yammering?

Along with festive horn blowing?

We bounced questions like basketballs

without substance to our theories.

But just the very sight of them

peeled off our wintry drearies.

 

Lynn Benjamin

January 1, 2024

 

Aging, All Poems, Change, Holidays, Memories, New Years Eve, Time

Pre-New Years Dinner

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It was the pre-New Years dinner.

Eight of us round the table.

Siblings and cousins.

Chattering like starlings about travels.

Organizing photo albums.

With detailed descriptions.

Places, events.

Some from years ago.

On slides needing carousels.

Or action flicks on 8mm film.

Later, VHS or DVD.

Photographic prints.

More recently, pictures, videos on phones.

In the cloud.

Some of us spend time.

Looking back at them.

Reliving vacations.

But, where will they go after we go?

Who will take them?

Treasure them?

Even care?

Ditto with the things we own.

All of us guarding mementos.

From our own parents.

Furniture, paintings, kitchenware.

Jewelry, postcards, portraits.

Who will want ours?

Likely not our children.

Whose tastes diverge.

Have already moved on.

Creating their own families, footprints.

Accumulating their own stuff.

Though all of us have urges,

wishes to be remembered,

they may remain unfulfilled.

Longings best surrendered.

 

Lynn Benjamin

December 31, 2023

 

All Poems, Death, Family, Food, New Years Eve, Spouses

Sad Thought

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We were working in the kitchen.

Preparing for the New Years soirée.

Collaborating like usual.

Dicing onions, garlics, peppers.

Sautéing a sofrito.

Adding tomatoes.

Putting together dough for bread.

When Bob looked up.

Hands still squeezing lemons.

Said, I have a sad thought.

What’s that? I asked, ladling cooked cod into a container.

Will you make dinner parties after I’m gone?

I paused.

Contemplated the question.

Before I could answer, he went on.

If it’s the reverse, I know I won’t.

I chimed in, Well, it could never be the same.

Visualizing how we share jobs.

Shopping.

Baking.

Cooking.

Washing dishes.

Tidying up.

For half a second

an ominous curtain fell.

Left both of us silent

under its spell.

As an odd reversal played out.

For it’s always I, not he,

in moments of high joy,

summoning mortality.

My turn to snap us back

to the bliss of synchrony.

End entr’acte of mourning

with noisy activity.

Steer us from despair,

flipping the blender’s switch to go.

So we’d continue with our tasks.

Resume lighthearted status quo.

 

Lynn Benjamin

January 1, 2023